Devil’s Advocate: Meet the Teacher Who Couldn’t Read
Tune in to Devil’s Advocate as guest host Pam Benigno is joined by John Corcoran from the John Corcoran Foundation, telling of his longtime struggles with illiteracy, and State Board of Education member Debora Scheffel discussing ideas and strategies to improve literacy for Colorado students.
Accountability, Please? Arbitrator Says Dougco Union Can Keep Tax Funds
Ed News Colorado reports today regarding a dispute over publicly-funded teacher union employees, that an arbitrator has ruled in favor of the Douglas County Federation of Teachers (DCFT) and against the taxpayers. At issue is $118,500 school district officials say the union president agreed to pay rather than be accountable for the use of tax-funded […]
Washington Post Calls for Serious Changes to Teacher Pay and Tenure
Real educator compensation reform has grown well beyond being a conservative or liberal issue. We continue to learn more and more about the costs and effects of unproductive pay systems. A couple weeks ago I brought your attention to a possible breakthrough New Teacher Project report called The Irreplaceables — showing how high-performing teachers not […]
Let’s Respect and Empower Parents with Choices, Not Look Down on Them
From the files of “Did she really say that?” comes a post written a few days ago by Diane Ravitch, under the heading: “Do parents always know what is best?” Ravitch extensively quotes a Louisiana teacher, who hardly wins friends and influences people with this opener:
I am tired of this attitude about parents knowing […]
Foiled Again? Colorado School Finance Project Data Summary Skews Story
The Colorado School Finance Project (COSFP) has released its latest batch of funding data. The results include a significantly too-low spending figure and a misleading graph that rears its ugly head again, not to mention leaving out the all-important total spending per student figure. Leave it to little Eddie to play the foil and ground readers in some basic facts.
Amy Oliver Show: Teachers Have Options at Back-to-School Time
Tim Farmer from the Professional Association of Colorado Educators joins senior education policy analyst Ben DeGrow for back-to-school time to talk about declining union membership and other options for teachers.
DeGrow Shares Insights on Tax-Funded Teacher Unions with New Mexico Watchdog
In his new investigative piece “Union Time on the Taxpayer Dime,” New Mexico Watchdog reporter James Scarantino included quotes and insights from senior education policy analyst Ben DeGrow concerning Education Policy Center research on tax-funded teachers union release time in Colorado
Winters Just Made It Even Harder to Argue with Florida’s Education Success
Last time I wrote about Florida, it was touting their “silver medal” among the 50 states for growing student achievement in the past 15 years. The Harvard study that handed out the imaginary awards analyzed how much progress 4th-grade and 8th-grade students have made on the national NAEP test.
Second place out of 50? Not too […]
Eagle County Teacher-Technology Controversy Calls for Blended Learning
Several days ago Education Week published a story about a large Colorado school district replacing French and German language instructors with software-driven programs:
Of all the recent budget cuts made by the Eagle County, Colo., school district —the loss of 89 staff jobs through attrition and layoffs, a 1.5 percent across-the-board pay cut, and the introduction […]
State Board OKs Two More Falcon Innovation Schools; One Banishes Tenure
When Colorado passed the first-of-its-kind Innovation Schools Act in 2008, observers knew that the law was primarily tailored to transform the most challenging campuses in Denver Public Schools (DPS). And so it largely has played out. No one else has matched the 24 DPS schools who have taken advantage of the Act’s process to transform […]
How Much Colo. Teachers Union Member Losses Tied to Greater Options?
Senior policy analyst Ben DeGrow offers some quotable insights regarding news that the Colorado Education Association membership numbers continue in significant decline over the past two years.
Event Video: John Corcoran’s Personal Tale Touts Importance of Literacy
On Thursday, August 2, national literacy champion John Corcoran shared the personal story of his long bout with (and ultimate triumph over) illiteracy at an Independence Institute Brown Bag Lunch Event with an audience of more than 50 Colorado educators, officials and other interested citizens.
